The Houses Competition (or THC)
House: Slytherin
Class : Charms
Category (Drabble/Standard): Standard
Prompt(s) chosen: [Theme] Travel, [Genre] Romance
Word Count: 2963
Disclaimers/triggers: Post War, Established Relationship
Betas: TheFrenchPress; Aya, Ash, Dhrish. CorvusDraconis
Solace
The loud hollow clack of the gavel bounced off the stone walls, its echo silencing those present better than any spell. Her breath caught in her throat, a hard lump of fear making it impossible to breathe.
"The Wizengamot has come to a decision. Be seated."
Pale-blue eyes stared up at the man who held the fate of her family in his hands. Her thin fingers trembled in her lap even as she held her head high, trying to maintain a semblance of pride, if only for those watching.
"It is with deep sense of regret that I deliver the sentencing today," the Chief Warlock announced solemnly.
A tear threatened to make itself known at the corner of her eye, her heart on the precipice of shattering with what that sentencing could be.
"This was a heated deliberation that took many hours of precious time, and I wish the accused to understand that every member of the Wizengamot strove to ensure that a miscarriage of justice was not committed today." The man in plum robes leaned forward, staring at the bound wizard before the Wizengamot.
Narcissa feared what awaited him.
"Mister Ogden, if you would please get on with it," a stout witch with a twisted frown chided from his right.
"Very well." Chief Warlock Ogden seemed to deflate under the offered scorn. "Today, the Wizengamot rules in favour of Lucius Abraxas Malfoy, by majority rule, clearing him of all charges of murder, dissension, corruption of office, conspiracy, trespassing, and unlawful use of the dark arts."
All the air left her in one great expulsion, her hands gripping the back of the wooden seat before her.
Before she could stand, the wizard continued speaking. "The court does, however, find him guilty of one charge of kidnapping of Hermione Jean Granger. However, at the victim's request and testimony, it has been decided a monetary fine will be implemented rather than the expected detention. You are, regrettably, free to go."
The gavel cracked again, committing the judgment to record and setting her husband free. Narcissa jerked to her feet, all sense of decorum, reputation, and pride gone as she flew down the stone steps. Her heels clacked against the stone in the stunned silence of the courtroom, and she knew every weary, judgmental eye was on her, but she did not care. As Lucius stood released from his binds, she threw her arms around his neck, pulling him to her.
"Cissa, we have an audience," Lucius rasped, his normally mellifluous voice hoarse in her ear as his hands rested on her waist.
"Let them stare. I do not care," she breathed out, her fingers curling tightly against his back.
Lucius let out a breath that sounded like relief before he pushed back against her, separating them.
Tears had begun to slip down her cheek.
He brought his thumb up to push them away as he shook his head. "Now, there is no need for these. Let's go home."
Narcissa cupped her hands around his, inhaling deeply to still her tears. "We aren't going home. We are going somewhere else, anywhere else but home."
"Very well," Lucius quietly agreed, turning his head to look up at the wizard who'd begrudgingly set him free. "Chief Warlock Ogden, am I at leisure to escort my wife home, or is there more required of me?"
The man looked as if he had swallowed a sour orange as he gazed down at them. "You are free to go, Mister Malfoy. The sum has already been requested from your vaults."
Narcissa wrapped her arm around Lucius' as he turned toward the stone steps she'd just flown down. With all the gratitude in her body, Narcissa turned toward the bushy-haired witch, smiling at them from her new seat on the Wizengamot, and bowed her head.
Her wordless thanks were returned in the same fashion by Hermione Granger, and she smiled softly before leaving the courtroom with Lucius.
It had been several years since she'd been on a train.
Decades if she really sat and counted the years.
She'd grown unaccustomed to the constant vibration and sway of the car as it moved along the tracks. She had Apparated from the moment she passed her exam or utilizing the Floo network when it was unseemly to just appear anywhere. Her mother had always considered the train beneath them, and some of that prejudice Narcissa had carried with her into her own adulthood, as she had done with many other ideals and notions.
"You seem preoccupied," Lucius speculated, interrupting her thoughts.
"Counting the years since I've been on a train, idle thinking." She smiled, clasping his hand as she turned to look at him as they sat in their private car.
It had been only a few hours since his release, but already she could see the difference freedom had on him. His eyes were still haunted, she imagined they would be for some time, but there was relief in their depths. Additionally, he finally was clean, his long blonde hair washed and tied back, his fingernails rid of the dirt and decay that Azkaban had deposited there. His clothing was pressed and did not smell as if it'd been stored among refuse, as it had when she embraced him in the courtroom. Not that she cared. It'd been nearly a year since she'd been able to see him, let alone touch him. She would have still pulled him to her then, even if he was covered in Flobberworm pus.
She and Draco had been acquitted shortly after the Battle of Hogwarts, with Potter's fiery testimony that without her or Draco, they would have surely lost the war, thus breaking their bonds. The Boy-Who-Lived became their champion when all thought he should have left them to rot, something neither she nor her son expected. But Lucius had gained many enemies, and the longer they kept him in that soulless, hellish island on the sea, the more she was sure she would never see him again.
"Idle thoughts still?" Lucius smiled, his hand coming to cup her chin as he drew her focus. "I can see your distress clearly."
"I thought I had lost you," she warbled as the emotions stole her voice.
"I thought you were lost to me, too." In one movement, his forehead was pressed to hers, their noses touching. His voice was low, for her ears alone. "But we are together again, and we will never be separated again, dove. My heart cannot bear the idea of a life without you."
Before she could whisper her affection, his lips caressed hers tenderly, and all her worries faded for a moment. Her hands cupped his cheeks as his fingers slid down her shoulders and round her back, pulling her tightly to him. It was a joining of lips wrought with relief that could not be expressed with words, each second chasing away the desperation and loneliness that had been her constant companions.
He parted from her first, drawing back so that he was staring into her eyes. "I love you, Narcissa. I hope that during our time apart, you could take comfort in that at least."
"I never doubted your love for me, Lucius. Not once," Narcissa confessed as her hands slid from his face to curl into the lapel of his travellling cloak.
Lucius' face broke into such a joyous smile that she swore he looked nearly ten years younger as it crossed his face. It had been far too long since she'd seen him wear such an expression.
"I do not deserve a wife such as you," he declared, relaxing his hold on her.
Narcissa grinned as she shifted back into her seat, lifting her chin as she chirped mockingly, "Perhaps not, but you have me."
"There is the smile I wished for in my darkest hours," he observed, pressing another kiss to the corner of her mouth.
Narcissa was thankful for the privacy that they had at that moment, knowing that Lucius was never so generous with his affection when another could witness it. She preferred it that way most of the time, treasuring his words and attentions that she knew were only ever for her.
The train bounced them again, reminding her why she did not like locomotives. Her eyes drifted toward the window, and she could see the French countryside spilling out before them. She recognized it instantly, drawing from her youthful time spent with the Rosier side of her family.
"We are nearly at our stop," she announced. "I sent some elves ahead to ensure the villa is ready for us."
"And Draco?" Lucius inquired with just a hint of concern.
Narcissa let out a soft sigh, smiling at her husband. A lot had happened in the time since they'd been released that he was not privy to. Deciding that it was not her business to share and that it was best if father and son had a conversation, she kept the true nature of her son's absence to herself. "He is staying behind in London for a few days; he said he had some business to attend to with Miss Granger."
"A Malfoy cavorting with a Muggleborn." Lucius scoffed. "How times have changed."
"And we will be changing with them this time, Lucius," Narcissa declared, her tone sharp. She would not suffer because of this a third time; she would not have her family jeopardized on the grounds of foolishness and old ways, which had little to do with the world they lived in now. Narcissa had not stared down a madman and so boldly lied to have her family thrust into such things ever again.
"Of course, dove." Her expression must have told Lucius her thoughts, his face growing serious, the lines around his mouth deepening. "This time, the Malfoy Family changes its ways. We owe Miss Granger a debt for my freedom, and we will not make fools of ourselves and not honour that."
"I'm glad we are in agreement." Narcissa pressed a kiss to his temple as she felt the train begin to slow. "Your son already feels exactly the same way."
She awoke with a start as her hand slid over the other side of the bed and found it cold. Instead of a dark room, Narcissa discovered it illuminated by moonlight streaming in through the open balcony doors. Sitting up, she recognized Lucius' silhouette beyond the doors. She slipped her feet into her slippers and wound her robe around her over her nightgown as she moved to join him in the night air.
"Trouble sleeping?" she whispered as she came up behind him, slipping her arms around his waist and resting her chin on his shoulder.
"Yes," Lucius grumbled, one hand leaving the railing to rest against hers on his stomach.
Narcissa could only imagine the things that kept him awake, knowing that he spent far more time incarcerated than she had. The trauma of incarceration was never a kind mistress. She wove her fingers together with his, kissing the side of his neck as she hummed. "Come to bed. I will get you a sleeping draught."
"No, I am content to stand here," Lucius rumbled almost agitatedly. Immediately, a contrite sigh left him, and he gripped her hand before pulling his fingers away. "Go back to sleep, dove."
Shifting from behind him, she moved to stand at his side, glancing at his face. His eyebrows were tight and furrowed down, a deep frown creasing the sides of his mouth. "Lucius, are you all right?"
"I find my mind troubled tonight," he confessed as he leaned against the balcony railing with his hands.
Stroking his cheek with her hand, she pressed him for answers. "Nightmares?"
His grey eyes turned on her then, the harshness fading from his gaze. "Of a sort, but it is reality that has me out of sorts at the moment."
"What is it?" Narcissa was worried by his demeanour. They had been at the villa for a few days, and his spirits seemed high, but now he stood with almost a cloud of gloom over his head.
Lucius leaned forward, his elbows resting on the metal railing as his eyes went back to gazing over the moonlit vineyards that surrounded Villa Rosier. "I do not deserve to be here."
She began to object because, of course, he deserved to be there with her. "I don't—"
"I am guilty, dove, and you know it." He halted her protest with his sharp tone. "Guilty of every heinous crime put against my name and so much more. Yet, here I am, a free man, when men who have done less than I are found guilty."
Narcissa closed her eyes for a moment, taking in a deep breath to calm herself before she reached out to rest her hand on his arm. "Lucius, you can't blame yourself."
"Who do I blame then, Narcissa?" he demanded, shaking his head. "I can only go so far in saying He forced my hand." His features were drawn up in disgust and anger, and she knew now that it was all directed at himself.
She wanted to console him, to give him words that would ease the pain and guilt that was tearing at him. Her eyes darted back and forth as she sought something, anything that would bring him peace.
"How can you love me knowing that I am a murderer, a Death Eater? I've blood on my hands that will never come clean," Lucius whispered.
His defeated whispering clawed at her heart. She slipped her arm over his sagging shoulders as she pressed her temple to his. "Because I know who you really are."
"That is who I really am," he countered.
It had been a long time since she'd heard him be this hard on himself. Lucius was a proud man who did not like to show these kinds of emotions to anyone, even her. That he was so upset that there was no attempt to conceal them saddened her, and she was determined to convince him that he was wrong about himself.
"No, you are the man I fell in love with, who made me, the youngest in my family, feel seen, important, and beautiful," she whispered softly, her hand slipping around his clasped ones. "You are my devoted husband, who has never once raised a hand or spoken a harsh word in my direction and has never taken a mistress because he has eyes—and love—only for me."
Her throat felt tight with emotion as she continued. "You are the father of my child, who doted on me every step of my precarious pregnancy, and was never prouder than when you held our son for the first time. That is who you are." Narcissa pressed her lips to his cheek. She needed him to believe in the good in himself, to see what she saw that no one else in the world would ever see in him. That he was a good man, with a good heart, who had let outside influences convince him otherwise.
"Everything else is the product of our misguided inheritance that impressed importance on blood purity, social appearances, and your desire to make your father proud, even long after his death."
"Cissa," Lucius' voice cracked as he tried to argue with her.
She turned his chin so that he looked at her and not the countryside. "You did all those things, Lucius, and there is nothing I can tell you that will change that, but we have a chance now to do better."
His grey eyes seemed almost desperate as his words. "How do I undo a lifetime of this, Narcissa?"
"By making changes to the way we do things now: how we spend our money, where we inject our influence. It will change how we let the world see us, but we will still do our best when the world isn't watching." They were the only answers she had; as insufficient as they were, they were the only option available to them.
His cheek leaned heavily into her hand as his eyes closed. "And what if that isn't enough?"
"Then you can say you tried and make it so that Draco will not fall into the same pattern of wanting to be like his father after we are gone," she stressed, knowing that Lucius wanted the best for their son.
"I already doomed him to that; he wears the same mark." Lucius pulled up his sleeve, showing the faded black tattoo on his pale skin.
Hesitantly, she placed her fingers over the mark, forcing back the revilement for it in this crucial moment. She knew now what she needed to do.
"Does he not deserve forgiveness from the world for taking it?" Narcissa asked him quietly.
Lucius jerked his head up from her palm. His eyes widened. "Of course he does. He didn't have a choice in the matter."
A smile slipped over her lips as she covered the mark from sight with her hand. "How better to teach him that than to forgive yourself? If you cannot do it for you, do it for him."
Realization dawned in his eyes that darted from her features to her hand covering the Dark Mark.
She said nothing as she watched him consider her words, offering him her quiet comfort.
His hand covered hers after a moment, and he leaned his head against hers. "I do not deserve you, dove."
"I think you do," she chimed with a smile, turning her hand so that she was now holding his. "Now, come to bed. It is cold without you, and I've had my fill of empty beds for a lifetime."
"As have I." Lucius smiled, leaning back from the bannister and following her to bed.